Didn’t your heart beat a little faster when you saw ”Johnny” dance in Dirty Dancing in the summer of 1987?  Didn’t your heart skip a beat when you saw ”Dalton” fight the bad guys in Road House in 1989?  Didn’t your heart break just a little when ”Sam” said goodbye to his fiance (played by Demi Moore) in Oscar-nominated Ghost in 1990?  These were three of my favorite Patrick Swayze movies and some of the reasons I became one of his biggest fans here in Oklahoma City.

In January, 2008 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He made that diagnosis public in March of that same year and our hearts went out to him.  He battled for 20 months before passing away yesterday, September 14th, 2009.  During that 20 months he shot a full season (13 episodes) of his new A&E drama “The Beast”.  He never gave up!  And we never gave up on him.  He had 1.3 million viewers tune in to his series. 

Back on September 2nd, I posted on this very site information about a foundation called Stand Up To Cancer.  A year ago September 5th, this group was introduced to all of us on national television by none other than Patrick Swayze.  Their goal is to bring together all the brilliant people working on a cure for cancer.  Patrick hoped it would happen in his lifetime.  By donating what you can to Stand Up To Cancer hopefully we can make it happen in ours! 

My condolences go out to Patrick’s wife, Lisa Niemi, and the rest of his family.  Patrick will be missed.  All who knew him said he was a wonderful person.  Most of us knew him only through his body of work.  A body of work that was both varied and fantastic!  

If you didn’t get an opportunity to view the television special last year, here’s a quick link to it.